“Beside being concise and rigorous, Essentials of Game Theory is
also quite comprehensive. It includes the formulations used in most
applications in engineering and the social sciences, and illustrates
the concepts with relevant examples.”

“Although written by computer scientists, this book serves as a
sophisticated introduction to the main concepts and results of game
theory from which other scientists, including social scientists, can
greatly benefit. In eighty pages, Essentials of Game Theory formally
defines key concepts, illustrated with apt examples, in both cooperative
and noncooperative game theory.”

“This book will appeal to readers who do not necessarily hail from
economics, and who want a quick grasp of the fascinating field of game
theory. The main categories of games are introduced in a lucid way and
the relevant concepts are clearly defined, with the underlying
intuitions always provided.”

— Krzysztof Apt, University of Amsterdam, Institute for Logic,
Language and Computation

“To a large extent, modern behavioral ecology and behavioral
economics are studied in the framework of game theory. Students and
faculty alike will find this concise, rigorous and clear introduction to
the main ideas in game theory immensely valuable.”

“This unique book is today the best short technical introduction to
game theory. Accessible to a broad audience, it will prove invaluable in
artificial intelligence, more generally in computer science, and indeed
beyond.”

“Excerpted from a much-anticipated, cross-disciplinary book on
multiagent systems, this terse, incisive and transparent book is the
ideal introduction to the key concepts and methods of game theory for
researchers in several fields, including artificial intelligence,
networking, and algorithms.”

Game theory is the mathematical study of interaction among
independent, self-interested agents. Its imprint has become quite
broad, and beside in economics, its traditional application area,
is strongly felt today in disciplines as diverse as computer
science, political science, biology, psychology, linguistics,
sociology, and electrical engineering, among many others. This book
provides a concise and accessible introduction to the field,
covering the common basis that any member of this multidisciplinary
audience is likely to require. It minimizes notation without
sacrificing rigor, and ruthlessly focuses on essentials.

The origin of Essentials of Game Theory is our much longer
book, Multiagent
Systems: Algorithmic, Game-Theoretic, and Logical Foundations,
which covers diverse theories relevant to the broad area of
Multiagent Systems within Artificial Intelligence and other areas of
Computer Science. Multiagent Systems goes into much more detail
about game theory than Essentials (e.g., it includes proofs and
additional technical details, as well as broaching new topics such as
computation of solution concepts, communication, learning, and
compact representation of games). Multiagent Systems also
extends beyond game theory to
cover distributed problem solving, social choice, mechanism design,
auction theory, and logics of knowledge and belief.